Following Idol's lead

TOM JICHA COMMENTARY

March 16, 2008|TOM JICHA COMMENTARY

Cross out "sing" from the American Idol playbook and insert "dance," and you have Dancing With the Stars.

Every network has tried to imitate American Idol. Dancing With the Stars is the only one to even come close in popularity, using the same format of a competition show followed by an elimination show the next night. Twelve couples - one celebrity and one professional dancer - begin the ballroom dance competition. Dolphin-for-now Jason Taylor has been matched with Edyta Sliwinska. Taylor should be able to identify with his partner-tutor: Sliwinska has been on all six editions of the series without winning anything.

Couples choose from two types of dances, and performances are assessed by three judges. The two male judges, Bruno Tonioli and Len Goodman, started out as Simon Cowell wannabes but have evolved into distinct, colorful characters in their own right. The lone woman, Carrie Ann Inaba, is considerably sharper than her American Idol counterpart, Paula Abdul. (But then, who isn't?) All three have professional dancing and choreography experience.

The judges rate each performance on a scale of 1 to 10. Like Idol, the public gets to vote by phone, text and Internet. The rankings of the judges are combined with those of the public, with the lowest-scoring duo each week eliminated. The first week, no one will go home, but the next week, on March 25, one male star and one female star will get the boot.

The winners take home pride in a job well done as well as a disco-ball trophy, which places it in the category of the $1.98 Beauty Show.